The
Aeroscraft is a planned heavy-lift, variable-buoyancy cargo
airship featuring an onboard buoyancy management system,
rigid structure,
vertical takeoff and landing performance, and operational abilities at low speed, in hover, and from unprepared surfaces. It has a number of innovative features, the most important of which is a method of controlling the airship's static lift, which can be reduced by pumping helium from the internal gasbags and storing it under pressure: conversely, lift can be increased by reinflating the gasbags using the stored gas.
Project Pelican and Dragon Dream Project Pelican was a US government-funded project to build and test a half-scale prototype of the proposed full-size Aeroscraft, using representative structure and
avionics. The airship measures and design speed of The company received US$60 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop the concept, resulting in a prototype named
Dragon Dream, which underwent systems tests and flight demonstrations in late 2013. The first floating took place on January 3, 2013, at the hangar at the
former Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin in which it was constructed, where it hovered indoors at a height of for several minutes. The Pentagon has declared that the tests of the Dragon Dream were a "success", with the craft meeting its demonstration objectives. The airship was rolled out of its hangar on July 4, 2013. and performed its first flight on September 11. It was subsequently damaged when part of the roof of the hangar collapsed on it on 7 October 2013. The company sued the Navy for $65 million in 2015 for the collapse. The lawsuit was settled in favor of Aeros with an award of $6,882,918 for damages.
Planned full-scale craft The company is beginning production of two examples, an ML866 and an ML868 model.
Design The Aeroscraft is a
rigid airship, having an internal structure to maintain its shape. It can reach otherwise difficult or inaccessible locations and can hover indefinitely with a full payload on board. The design incorporates cargo bays that are larger than any current air, truck or rail transport, while the payload capacity is significantly more than the current 16-ton maximum for helicopters. Propulsion is provided by conventional propellers, and in addition the Aeroscraft has six downward-pointing
turbofan jet engines that assist in
vertical take-off and landing. These turbofans, together with the Aeros "COSH" buoyancy control system, make the Aeroscraft capable of taking off and landing vertically without the need for a
runway, a ground crew, or external
ballast. As with any airship, the Aeroscraft may be used to transport cargo to remote or difficult locations and to hover over uneven terrain. The manufacturer also envisions the delivery of large amounts of commercial merchandise from a centralized location. ==Fleet==